SET orders recount of Tolentino votes

The Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), giving due course to the election protest of senatorial candidate Francis Tolentino against detained Senator Leila de Lima, and after more than a year of trial, unanimously ordered the immediate recount of votes in 635 contested ballot boxes used during the May 2016 elections.

The recount is scheduled on October 16, 2017 at the SET premises in Quezon City.

The SET resolution was approved by SET Chairman and Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio and all the SET members of the Supreme Court and the Senate.

Tolentino, who placed number 13th behind 12th placer De Lima, contested the results on various grounds including, but not limited to the change of computer hash codes which served as one of the grounds for the recent impeachment of Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista by the House of Representatives last October 10, 2017.

De Lima did not file any counter-protest.

Tolentino, an independent candidate then, who emerged as top placer in several localities nationwide, claimed that the anomalies stemmed from man-made, as well as computer-generated manipulations.

Tolentino’s legal team is led by former University of the Philippines Law Dean Pacifico Agabin.